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Reaching out to IT Professionals with Webcasting

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Reaching out to IT Professionals with Webcasting GOOD IDEAS Reaching Out to IT Professionals with Webcasting The CREN TechTalks target the needs of campus IT professionals by disseminating technology developments quickly and efficiently By Judith V. Boettcher and Daryl L. Nardick ne driving force of the infor- Analysis of the Need mation age is — no surprise Obviously, a new approach was O— information. Information About CREN needed. A more formal instructional surrounds and reaches us everywhere. design analyzed the lifestyle of the In a new book, Next: The Future Just CREN is a nonprofit member audience we wanted to reach, the 1 Happened, Michael Lewis noted that organization of more than 220 technologies available to this audi- “it is wildly disruptive to speed up ence, and the costs and suitability of universities, colleges, and research information.” If this is true, the need the available technologies. for information services to help make organizations governed by a 12- The analysis focused on four sense of the information flood is member board of trustees. CREN’s components: greater than ever. mission is to support higher edu- I Who is the audience? What knowl- Yet, learning takes time, and time is cation and research organizations edge and skills do they already scarce for most professionals. When with strategic IT knowledge ser- have? and how do professionals stay up-to- I What knowledge or skills do they vices and communication tools. In date? What are practical ways for pro- want to acquire? fessionals to incorporate learning into addition to the TechTalks, CREN I What technologies can support their work styles? provides a set of services sup- and deliver the learning experi- CREN is a nonprofit organization porting the knowledge of and use ence? Are the members of the audi- that supports IT professionals with of digital certificates, including ence likely to have easy, conve- strategic knowledge services and com- the CREN Institutional Certificate nient and cost-effective access to munications tools. The CREN these technologies? and Web server certificates and TechTalks series of Webcasts, now in its I Where, when, and with whom is fifth year, addresses the needs of cam- live seminars <http://www.cren most of their learning done? What pus IT professionals for practical infor- .net>. makes an effective experience sur- mation services. Back in 1997, the rounding the content to be CREN board of trustees thought that it learned? was important to provide services to mat. Pilot deployments showed that The answers to these questions disseminate technology developments learning materials in this static for- clarified how we could meet our goal and case studies more quickly and effi- mat simply did not fit most IT profes- of delivering structured and informal ciently to a larger set of information sionals’ learning styles or work styles. learning to a large group of geo- technology campus professionals than These same pilots showed that the graphically dispersed IT profession- in the past. (See the sidebar “About costs of producing the CDs were high, als. The analysis also suggested eval- CREN.”) as were the distribution and support uating an emerging technology that The first attempts at capturing and costs. Finally, the browser technology could deliver timely content to IT disseminating the knowledge of was a moving target, causing the tuto- professionals whatever their loca- higher education IT professionals rials to behave differently — and tion. That emerging technology in were called Virtual Seminars. These often not to behave at all — in spe- 1997 was Webcasting. high-quality, professionally produced cific browser and operating system Selecting Webcasting as the core tutorials used an interactive CD for- environments. delivery technology had the added Number 4 2001 • EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY 51 benefit of making it easy to incorpo- The TechTalks also share characteris- ble. One of the experts suggested that rate asynchronous elements that tics of radio and television talk shows. the best way of describing these Web would address the professionals’ The question-and-answer e-mail capa- events was like National Public Radio’s diverse learning and work styles. From bility supports spontaneous partici- “CarTalk” for techies in IT. this analysis emerged the 360-degree pant interaction and introduces an multimedia format (see Figure 1) that interesting unpredictability to the Webcasting as a includes a preview announcement, a questions. The Webcast is scheduled at Technology supporting Web site, archived tran- a regular time and place, and the When the first TechTalks began, the scripts in both audio and video format, TechTalk series features a regular tech- technologies to enable Webcasts were and a live TechTalk event with an nology anchor — Howard Strauss from just being developed. In the five years interactive, real-time, question-and- Princeton University. We also have a since, Webcasts have grown to “more answer capability. regular show host to assist in framing than one thousand 24-hour Webcast The TechTalks share characteristics the session. The show host handles broadcast channels.”2 of tried and true formats for learning introductions, provides some give- Webcasting is most simply defined favored by IT professionals. The and-take discussion, and assists in as the delivery of audio and video sig- TechTalks have elements of a live monitoring and posing the incoming nals over the Internet. In her 1998 stand-up seminar in that the fea- questions. The role of the show host is book on Webcasting,3 Miles defined tured expert is articulate, knowledge- often filled by former IT guest experts. Webcasting very broadly, encompass- able, and effective at explaining While the format of the TechTalks is ing broadcasting, videoconferencing, complex ideas clearly and succinctly. still evolving, the goals of the Webcasts and even one-to-one communications. Also, the content isn’t scripted. The are clear. They provide a medium for IT This definition of Webcasting has nar- content, although prepared, remains professionals to tap into the expertise rowed some since then;, Webcasting open to spontaneity and partici- of national professionals who special- now generally refers to the delivery of pants’ questions. Unlike seminars, ize in higher education IT needs and audio or video content to large groups, the TechTalks don’t include a pre- challenges. Better still, they offer a way either locally or globally distributed. pared set of slides. In fact, slides are to do this learning conveniently, eco- Over time, the term Webcasting has generally discouraged, as they are nomically, and with minimal disrup- evolved, now referring primarily to visual rather than auditory. Rather, tion to one’s work schedule. live events. Webcast events are fre- the expert, technology anchor, and The experts in these sessions focus quently archived for availability on host collectively agree on the event’s on core IT concepts, plus technical demand as well. focus, then prepare a pool of inter- trends and issues. Topics are selected The development of streaming tech- view questions used in the dynamic for their strategic importance to the nologies has served as the catalyst for of an informal, but informative, campus infrastructure, and the ques- the proliferation of Webcasts. Stream- interview discussion format. tions focus on the practical and possi- ing technologies solve the problem of the real-time nature of broadcasting audio and video signals. These tech- Figure 1 nologies, such as those available from RealNetworks and Microsoft, convert TechTalk 360-Degree Format: audio or video signals into digital Synchronous and Asynchronous information continuously delivered over the Internet. Streaming technolo- gies use compression-decompression Announcement/ software and hardware (codecs) to con- Newsletter vert and compress analog signals, such as voices, to digital data packets that Event are then streamed out to viewers/par- Post- TechTalk Web ticipants in real time. Event Site Additions Event— The Catalyst Audio Webcasting An audio Webcast involves the fol- lowing production steps in broadcast- ing the audio signal: Print Archive Audio Archive 1. Generate the signal. In the TechTalks series, this is the audio signal of the conversation on the telephone bridge connecting the 52 EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY • Number 4 2001 technology anchor, the expert, and ties of the Webcast talk show format. the show host. On the day of the Webcast, the pro- 2. Capture a quality analog signal into duction team calls into the conference a sound card. With the TechTalk bridge 15 minutes before Webcast time Webcasts, the audio signal is cap- for a final check that everything will tured from the phone conference be ready to go on schedule. Sometimes using TeleHybrid4 equipment, these 15 minutes are uneventful (that’s which interfaces the telephone to good!); sometimes they are quite fran- the encoding sound card in the PC. tic. Even with all the preparation, we This device ensures a good signal did have to cancel one session at the match between the telephone and last minute due to equipment failure. the sound card. A streaming audio Fortunately, a message posted on the engineer oversees this process. Web site provided almost instant com- 3. Convert the signal to digital with munication about the cancellation, encoding and compression soft- and we rescheduled that session for ware. For the TechTalk Webcasts, the following week. we use RealProducer Plus from RealNetworks.5 This software Supporting Technology encodes the audio input from the Supporting live e-mail communica- sound card into a format that can During the Webcast tion during the Webcasts is straightfor- be sent to a streaming media server, the anchor and the host ward. An e-mail account is set up, and such as RealServer. prior to each Webcast the account 4. Send the digitized data stream to a monitor the e-mail administrator links the account to the streaming media server that then e-mail addresses of the expert, the sends the stream to individual as it comes in.
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